BROKEN BACK TO REALITY – Psalm 39:1-13

Posted by Pastor Greg Allen on April 8, 2018 under 2018 |

Preached Bethany Bible Church on April 8, 2018 from Psalm 39:1-13

Theme: God, in love, sometimes allows His people to suffer in order to restore Himself as their all.

(All Scripture is taken from The New King James Version, unless otherwise indicated).

Something had happened to King David—something very painful.

Some Bible scholars have suggested that it was the horrible loss he felt when his son Absalom had rebelled against him. Others have suggested that it was when he suffered loss because of his sinful backslide into adultery and murder. Others still have suggested that it was the insults and curses he was subjected to from a man named Shimei—at a time when he was in exile from his kingdom. But the fact is that we don’t know what this painful thing was that happened to him.

Anything that we can know about it comes from the song that he wrote as a result of it. You’ll find the lyrics to that song recorded in your Bible. It’s Psalm 39. Let’s read it together:

I said, “I will guard my ways,
Lest I sin with my tongue;
I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle,
While the wicked are before me.”
I was mute with silence,
I held my peace even from good;
And my sorrow was stirred up.
My heart was hot within me;
While I was musing, the fire burned.
Then I spoke with my tongue:

“Lord, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am.
Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my age is as nothing before You;
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor. Selah
Surely every man walks about like a shadow;
Surely they busy themselves in vain;
He heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them.
“And now, Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in You.
Deliver me from all my transgressions;
Do not make me the reproach of the foolish.
I was mute, I did not open my mouth,
Because it was You who did it.
Remove Your plague from me;

I am consumed by the blow of Your hand.
When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity,
You make his beauty melt away like a moth;
Surely every man is vapor. Selah

“Hear my prayer, O Lord,
And give ear to my cry;
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner, as all my fathers were.
Remove Your gaze from me, that I may regain strength,
Before I go away and am no more” (Psalm 39:1-13).

* * * * * * * * * *

Consider for a moment what we can know about the sad experience of King David—just from the lyrics of the song he wrote.

We can know for example that whatever this experience was, it knocked him down in humility. He came away from it all with a sense that every man even at his very best (and that would include a mighty king such as himself) was nothing more than a vapor—a mere puff of wind. He says it twice in this psalm. In verse 5, he says, “Certainly every man at this best state is but vapor”; and then, he adds the musical notation to pause for a moment’s reflection—“Selah”. He does the same thing in verse 11; “Surely every man is vapor. Selah”. This means that one of the great lessons he learned from this experience—whatever that experience was—was that he was not as powerful and independently self-sufficient as he sometimes thought he was. He may have been able to convince himself otherwise by looking around at other people. But after this time of trial or suffering had cut him down to size—and he thus compared himself with no one but the almighty God—he found that he was nothing. Each one of us—even at our very best—is just a vapor. That truly is something to pause and think about!

Another thing that we know from this psalm is that this humbling experience of David’s—whatever it might have been—was clearly known by him to have come from the hand of God. He makes that clear in verse 9. He says that he didn’t feel it was right to complain much about this experience; because as he says to God in prayer, “it was You who did it”. In verse 10, he begs God, “Remove Your plague from me; I am consumed by the blow of Your hand.” We can take it even further, and see that he recognized this as an act of discipline from God. In verse 11 he speaks of God’s rebuke, and of His correction for iniquity. So, this was intended to be a humbling experience for David—one that he recognized as an act of God’s judgment.

And a final thing that we can know about David’s experience in this psalm is that it led him back to a humble trust in God. It may be that David himself—in his prosperity and success as a king—began to strut around a bit. It may be that he had gotten to be a little like King Nebuchadnezzar had gotten to be in Daniel 4; and that he had begun to convince himself that his kingdom was a product of his own efforts and was maintained by his own power—apart from dependency upon God. I believe we see this in the important words that David speaks in verse 7—words that, I believe, express the conclusion of the matter for him. He says, “And now, Lord, what do I wait for? My hope is in You.” Everything else—every false hope of self-importance—every sense of his own human glory—had somehow been stripped away from him. He was a ‘broken man’—but in the best sense. And now, he knew that he erred greatly in thinking that he could be anything without God.

What a powerful lesson this was. What a great song this is for us to learn from.

* * * * * * * * * *

Now; before we go another step further, I feel it’s very important for us to handle this psalm carefully—like handling a very powerful medication. It can serve us a good purpose if applied rightly; but if used wrongly or misapplied, it can cause a great deal of harm.

I believe we would be using it wrongly if we drew from it the conclusion that any time someone was suffering hardship or trial or illness in some way, it must be because they are prideful—and that God is cuttting them down to size. Not only would that be untrue to say about every experience of suffering; it would also be horribly cruel and unkind to say indiscriminately. When we see someone suffering, I suggest that it’s not for us to speculate on the reasons why. It’s only for us to love the sufferer, and show compassion and mercy to them, and to go with them to Jesus’ in prayer. Until we are given a clear warrant for doing otherwise, a good policy to have toward any brother or sister who is suffering is to keep our hearts open and our mouths closed.

But nevertheless, the lesson that this psalm has to teach us is that there are times when God—in His great love for us—will allow times of suffering, and will even place His heavy hand of pressure upon us, in order to break us free of the idea of being independent of Him. He loves us way too much to ever allow us to think that we can go along without Him; and He sometimes puts the pressure upon us in order to awaken us from the fantasy that we can live life apart from Him and make it all work.

You might say that, at such times, He breaks us in order to bring us back to reality.

And if that’s our case—and to be honest, it often is—then this psalm is for us. In it, King David—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit—shares his experience with us, and shows us the pathway back to reality through which God took him.

* * * * * * * * * *

Notice first …

1. DAVID’S REFLECTION IN SUFFERING.

You’ll see in the first verse that David begins by saying, “I said …” this is to indicate that he’s telling us something that he was at one time thinking in this experience. He is reporting to us what his inner resolve had been. He goes on to write;

I said, “I will guard my ways,
Lest I sin with my tongue;
I will restrain my mouth with a muzzle,
While the wicked are before me” (v. 1).

David had some thoughts about his experience; but he was careful not to give vent to them or make them public. He was concerned not to put forth a poor or untrue testimony—especially in front of those who would not honor God or who would take his words out of context.

But the fact that he was silent before others about his experience did not mean that he wasn’t thinking deeply about it. He says in verse 2;

I was mute with silence,
I held my peace even from good;
And my sorrow was stirred up (v. 2).

And may I suggest to you, dear brothers and sisters, that there was great wisdom in the way David did this? In our day, the tendency is to put way too much emphasis on ‘speaking our mind’ or ‘unloading our heart’ about things—and particularly long before our minds and hearts have been brought to the right place about it all. We do a lot of harm when we pour forth our complaints against God too quickly and too unrestrainedly. Another psalmist also wrote of his own time of suffering and doubts in Psalm 73; and with regard to his troubled thoughts, he wrote,

If I had said, “I will speak thus,”
Behold, I would have been untrue to the generation of Your children (Psalm 73:15).

In other words, if he had recklessly spoken his mind, he would have denied God’s truth and would have harmed others who trusted in God. It’s simply a wise policy to keep careful control of our words in times of suffering—and to do more thinking and listening to God than speaking and complaining to men.

But there was finally a time to speak. David said in verse 3,

My heart was hot within me;
While I was musing, the fire burned.
Then I spoke with my tongue … (v. 3).

This makes me think of the words of another godly sufferer—Jeremiah. God had placed great prophetic burdens upon his heart; and he suffered greatly for speaking God’s unwelcomed words to God’s unheeding people. But in Jeremiah 20:9, he wrote;

Then I said, “I will not make mention of Him,
Nor speak anymore in His name.”
But His word was in my heart like a burning fire
Shut up in my bones;
I was weary of holding it back,
And I could not (Jeremiah 20:9.)

I believe that, in deep periods of suffering, there is a time to be silent and reflective about it. We need to be quiet and let God speak to us about our trial during those formative moments. But afterward, there comes a time to speak forth. The burden of what God is teaching us in it all can no longer be contained; and when that happens, what bursts forth—if we have listened for a while first—will be a well-considered truth.

May God teach us to be quiet in our suffering, so that we can first hear His truth in it all.

* * * * * * * * * *

And that leads us to verses 4-6; and to …

2. DAVID’S RECITATION OF TRUTH.

David did not burst forth in ungodly complaints and accusations, or in unseemly self-justifications. As a result of allowing God to speak to his heart about what he was suffering, he said in verse 4;

“Lord, make me to know my end,
And what is the measure of my days,
That I may know how frail I am” (v. 4).

David was not, as some have suggested, asking God to show him when his trial would be over. Rather, he was asking something much bigger. He was asking God to allow him to gain an eternal perspective of how brief his time on earth is—and how frail he truly was. He went on to say;

Indeed, You have made my days as handbreadths,
And my age is as nothing before You;
Certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.
Selah

Surely every man walks about like a shadow;
Surely they busy themselves in vain;
He heaps up riches,
And does not know who will gather them (vv. 5-6).

These are not rash words. They are not hasty words spoken from out of disillusionment and despair. They are words that reflect a true evaluation of human frailty and of how vain it is to try to build up one’s kingdom on this earth to the neglect of trust in God.

Jesus spoke of this. Perhaps you remember the parable He told in Luke 12. He said;

“The ground of a certain rich man yielded plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying, ‘What shall I do, since I have no room to store my crops?’ So he said, ‘I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years; take your ease; eat, drink, and be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul will be required of you; then whose will those things be which you have provided?’ So is he who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God” (Luke 12:16b-21).

Consider King David’s son Solomon. King Solomon was able—as the psalm says—to ‘heap up riches’ for himself; but he likewise discovered that it would be heaped up for nothing. Someone else would get it all. Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes 2;

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labor;
And this was my reward from all my labor.
Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labor in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11).

And even the length of one’s life is short and uncertain and transitory in comparison to eternity. Moses wrote about it in Psalm 90:

For all our days have passed away in Your wrath;
We finish our years like a sigh.
The days of our lives are seventy years;
And if by reason of strength they are eighty years,
Yet their boast is only labor and sorrow;
For it is soon cut off, and we fly away.
Who knows the power of Your anger?
For as the fear of You, so is Your wrath (Psalm 90:9-11).

Moses then prayed a wise prayer about it all;

So teach us to number our days,
That we may gain a heart of wisdom (Psalm 90:9-12).

That’s basically what David’s time of suffering was leading him to pray.

* * * * * * * * * *

This trial was getting David’s attention then. It was breaking him free from the illusion that he could be anything in independency from God. It helped him to appreciate anew that apart from God, he had nothing at all—and that he was nothing at all.

And so, this leads us next to …

3. DAVID’S RESTORATION OF PERSPECTIVE.

He wrote;

“And now, Lord, what do I wait for?
My hope is in You” (v. 7).

Any trial—any time of suffering—any act of God’s disciplining hand—that makes us pray those words is, ultimately, a great gift of God’s grace. May we learn to pray it always!

In the light of this renewed sense of perspective, David even goes on to change his priorities. He was no longer thinking of himself as something when—in truth—he was nothing. He goes on to ask for a whole new set of things in his life:

Deliver me from all my transgressions;
Do not make me the reproach of the foolish.
I was mute, I did not open my mouth,
Because it was You who did it.
Remove Your plague from me;
I am consumed by the blow of Your hand.
When with rebukes You correct man for iniquity,
You make his beauty melt away like a moth;
Surely every man is vapor. Selah (vv. 8-11).

Many years ago—at a very early period of my Christian life—I was in a wonderful church youth group. One of the other members of that group encouraged me in my new faith by creating a piece of calligraphy for me. I’m sorry to say that I have long since lost that piece of artwork. But I’ll never forget the verses it contained. They were from Psalm 73:26-27;

Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.
My flesh and my heart fail;
But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever (Psalm 73:25-26).

I believe that that’s where God wants each of our hearts to be toward Him. And I think God used David’s time of suffering to bring him to that attitude of heart as well. He no longer thought of himself as anything apart from God. He no longer felt that he could live apart from complete dependency upon God’s help. He had been broken back to reality. He now would say, “Who have I in heaven but You? And there is none on earth that I desire besides You.”

* * * * * * * * * * *

And this led, finally, to …

4. DAVID’S REQUEST FROM A HUMBLED HEART.

He began this song by telling us what he had at one time said. And now, at the end of this song, he writes down what he now prays—a prayer of great trust and dependency upon his Savior:

“Hear my prayer, O Lord,
And give ear to my cry;
Do not be silent at my tears;
For I am a stranger with You,
A sojourner, as all my fathers were.
Remove Your gaze from me, that I may regain strength,
Before I go away and am no more” (vv. 12-13).

The “gaze” that he asks God to remove from Him is not the gaze of a watchful Father’s love. He would always desire that. Rather, the gaze he here speaks of the stern gaze of rebuke—meant to bring about a correction of David’s wayward, independent heart. Now that he had been restored back to reality, he asks that the rebuking gaze be taken away. He is now so sensitive to his absolute dependency upon God that he is afraid that the rebuke of God’s gaze would be enough to destroy him. He now knows that he is a frail being—completely dependent upon a constant and conscious communion with his Creator. He knows himself to be a ‘stranger’ on this earth—a ‘sojourner’ along with all his fathers who